Letting Go

I am a stick in the mud sometimes.

I think everyone needs to take a step back and realize that they might be too. Sometimes in our lives and when we form relationships with people, we tend to stop ourselves, to suspend the happenings of life in perpetual motion because we can let go. The problem is that most of these hang ups don't matter, but yet they are so hard to let go of. I guess we just like to argue with ourselves. To always be known and to never give in to the inevitable or to things that just shouldn't be fought. Life and people are the way it and they will be. Trust me, you will be much happier if you can just let it go.

We all live a life that runs on it's own track but continues to infinitely bounce, affecting and being affected, off everyone and everything we come into contact with. Your ability to bounce is affected by your ability to let go.

Hey, I'll move out of the way for you
Hey, I'll move out of the way for her too

I never know what to do with my love
I never know what to do with my hands
So I put them behind my back
I put them behind my back
Behind my back

Can I move out of the way tomorrow?
Can I move into the way tonight? 

Hey, don't you know what it means when I say "hey"?
Hey see it in my face, I'm breaking
I've waited for so long
Just to know
That you'd wrap yourself around me if you couldn't let go

-Let Go by Ingrid Michaelson

You have choices. It's weird to thing that any interaction you have with someone can be looked as you getting in to the way of them living their lives. To get in the way, or not get in the way. Holding on and letting go. Asking someone out to go see a movie is just like the lyric "Can I move into the way tonight?" This is not to say that you must sit forever wanting to not get in the way. The person portrayed in the song falls in love , but yet she feels that every second she has no idea if the man she is in love with wants to be with her so she doesn't get in the way, yet inside she falls apart hoping that since he isn't leaving, that he will one day wrap his arms around her and love her - all because he couldn't let go. All of us are in our situation like this in one way or another, finding ourselves unable to let go of something always hoping that what we are holding on to hasn't let go of us either.

I was angry about the finale of LOST for a long time. When my brother got me hooked on it in it's fourth season, I watched every episode avidly and spread the word of LOST until everyone I went to school with was also hooked. It was the best show I had ever seen and it never failed to blow me away... until the end. I guess I could always tell after the third season that LOST was headed in a direction I already knew would be shaky. Instead of becoming a show about mysteries and island adventures, it was becoming a vehicle to explore the implications of science and faith. But yet, I was still hooked. THe show was too good to let that bother me then until it came down to the Final Season. All the answers were promised and all my friends and I were prepared to be blown away, but week by week, each episode went on and on, with no answers. For the first time I was content with skipping it and watching it online when I wasn't busy. It wasn't that the episodes weren't good, it was that I had built an expectation that could never be matched. Then I saw the finale... That was it?? All across America came the outcry as everyone wondered what in the hell just happened. For weeks and weeks, I was content with just saying "whatever LOST..whatever." Grey's Anatomy was there for me and I forgot about the lousy ending to LOST until this holiday break. I am an avid reader of Entertainment Weekly and if you read the magazine you know the best issue of the year is the New Years Double Issue that includes the Best and Worst in entertainment of the entire year. As I was reading, I came to an article about LOST, the final review for the show - the goodbye. I was curious and started reading the two pages in front of me. What I read changed my entire interpretation of LOST's final moments. The reviewer went on to state that the ending to LOST was perfect, it was exactly what the show set out to achieve, because in the end, LOST pulled off the ultimate feat. IF you aren't familiar with the show, each episodes presents the point of view of one character and how the Island they find themselves on makes them face their past, their hang ups, and their relationships, and show them how to let go. That none of it matters. For 6 seasons, we watched every character's journey and how they faced the questions of their lives until they finally realized it doesn't matter, just let go. With the viewer, the article stated, the show set up a thousand questions, it enticed you to want to know, it kept you entertained, it made you bite your nails, scream, cry, laugh, it took you on a journey and then just like life, just like all the other characters, it made you face up to the point of the entire show - just let go.

There are no answers to insolvable questions, the reasons to life are not always explained, and living and love and happiness is more important than answers. Just like the characters, in the end we are faced with the aspect of being asked to let go of something that affected our lives for 6 years. But when the end came... could you? After reading the article, I thought it was genius, how could I never have interpreted that? Because I wasn't ready to let go, I wasn't one of those people that could, yes it is just a show, but it's also a strong metaphor. I couldn't let go of something that was apart of me for 6 years and for months I sat brooding and unhappy, but it was pointless. Just in life, with break ups, memories, problems, questions that can't be answered, religion, politics - we argue, we fight, we question, and we forget that what's most important is being happy and the people around us. Good job LOST. You got me, and there are still thousands of people who don't understand, but now I do, and I think the ending is perfect now. I accept that. I have let go.

Yeah, I use a thousand extended metaphors and take up pages of writing for small concepts but the point is... just let go. Say you love someone. Forgive and forget. Don't grudge. Accept what you thought you couldn't before. Take a bad situation and stop taking it badly. Just let go. I had a talk recently with someone in the middle of the night who stressed to me the importance of this subject. It's funny that until she pointed this out, I didn't realize how many things I was doing that was causing a lot of stress, sadness, and problems in my own life. How much I was hurting people around me. Going into 2011, I am learning to let go more often. I was being a stick in the mud, and it was time for me to pull myself out of it. I'm Sorry.